Eight loaves of bread dating back around 5,000 years have been discovered at Seyitömer Mound in Türkiye, where a destructive fire appears to have preserved an extraordinary snapshot of Early Bronze Age food and daily life.
The burnt loaves were found alongside remains of wheat and lentils during rescue excavations at the archaeological site in Kütahya Province.
Archaeologists discovered the food remains inside a room containing an oven and traces of shelving, suggesting the space may have been used for preparing or storing food.
The finds have been dated to the first quarter of the Early Bronze Age and are now on display at the Kütahya Archaeology and Mining Museum.
Eight ancient loaves found beside an oven
The discovery was made during excavations led by archaeologist Dr Sevgi Gürdal, director of the Kütahya Museum.
Archaeologists investigating one of the rooms uncovered an oven together with the remains of a shelf positioned along a wall.
Between the supports of the collapsed shelving, the team found eight carbonised loaves of bread.
Wheat and lentil remains were discovered around them.
“During our excavations, we found eight burnt loaves of bread between the shelf supports in the area where the oven was located inside the room,” Gürdal said.
“We also found remnants of wheat and lentils around the bread.”
The association between the oven, bread, crops and shelving provides archaeologists with evidence for how food may have been stored inside the building around five millennia ago.
Fire preserved a moment from everyday life
Researchers believe the arrangement of the finds can be explained by a fire that destroyed the building.
Before the blaze, bread and agricultural produce may have been stored on shelving, potentially inside sacks or bags.
When the structure burned, the shelf collapsed and deposited its contents together on the floor.
“This indicates that there was a shelf there before the fire,” Gürdal explained. “There were also agricultural products and bread in sacks or bags on the shelf. When the shelf collapsed during the fire, these were found mixed together.”
Although fire destroyed the room, the burning process carbonised the organic material and allowed some of it to survive for thousands of years.
The result is an unusually direct glimpse of food storage and consumption during the Early Bronze Age.
Evidence of a 5,000-year-old diet
The bread, wheat and lentils provide evidence for some of the foods consumed by the community living at Seyitömer Mound.
Unlike pottery, stone tools and metal objects, food remains are particularly vulnerable to decay. Carbonisation can preserve plant material by transforming it into a form less susceptible to biological decomposition.
The discovery of complete or substantially preserved loaves is therefore particularly valuable because it can potentially provide information extending beyond the presence of individual cereal grains.
Detailed examination of ancient bread can sometimes reveal information about ingredients, cereal processing and preparation methods, although the source does not report whether such analyses have yet been undertaken on the Seyitömer examples.
For now, their archaeological context demonstrates that prepared bread was present alongside stored wheat and lentils when the building was destroyed.
Finds go on display
The carbonised loaves and associated plant remains have now been placed on display at the Kütahya Archaeology and Mining Museum.
According to Gürdal, the ancient food has become one of the museum's most popular discoveries, with visitors particularly interested in how bread could survive for approximately five millennia.
Finds from Seyitömer Mound form a substantial part of the museum's archaeological collection.
“The artefacts from Seyitömer Mound offer various data on the daily and social life, artistic understanding and dietary habits of its time,” Gürdal said.
More than 17,000 artefacts recovered during earlier campaigns at the mound have been transferred to the museum.
Decades of excavation at Seyitömer Mound
Seyitömer Mound lies around 26 kilometres from the centre of Kütahya and contains archaeological deposits extending back to approximately 3000 BC.
The mound originally measured about 26 metres high, 140 metres wide and 150 metres long.
Rescue excavations began in 1989 because of lignite reserves beneath the archaeological site.
The work was initially undertaken by the Eskişehir Museum Directorate before responsibility passed to the Afyonkarahisar Museum Directorate between 1990 and 1995.
Kütahya Dumlupınar University's Department of Archaeology subsequently conducted excavations between 2006 and 2014.
Since 2019, archaeological investigations have been carried out by the Kütahya Museum Directorate.
Current excavations are examining both Middle Bronze Age and Early Bronze Age levels, continuing to reveal evidence of the people who lived at Seyitömer thousands of years ago.
The eight carbonised loaves provide an unusually tangible connection to that community: food prepared for everyday consumption that survived because the building around it was destroyed by fire.
Sources : AA